“Bless his heart!” she said. “He must have been all worn out;” and she turned the light low, and gathering up his chairful of clothes, slipped away to the bathroom, where presently they were all, except the shoes, soaking in strong, hot soap-suds, and Miss Marilla had gone down-stairs to stir up the fire and put on irons. But she took the precaution to close all the blinds on the[80] Amber side of the house, and pull down the shades. Mary had no need ever to find out what she was doing. [80] The night wore on, and Miss Marilla wrought with happy heart and willing hands. She was doing something for somebody who really needed it, and who for the time being had no one else to do for him. He was hers exclusively to be served this night. It was years since she had had anybody of her own to care for, and she luxuriated in the service. Every hour she slipped up to feel his forehead, listen to his breathing, and give him his medicine, and then slipped down to the kitchen again to her ironing. Garment by garment the soldier’s meagre outfit came from the steaming suds, was conveyed to the kitchen, where it hung on an improvised line over the range, and got itself dry enough to be ironed and patched. It was a work of love, and therefore it[81] was done perfectly. When morning dawned the soldier’s outfit, thoroughly renovated and pressed almost beyond recognition, lay on a chair by the spare-room window, and Miss Marilla in her dark-blue serge morning-dress lay tidily down on the outside of her bed to take “forty winks.” But even then she could hardly get to sleep, she was so excited thinking about her guest and wondering whether he would feel better when he awoke or whether she ought to send for a doctor. [81] A hoarse cough roused her an hour later, and she went with speed to her patient, and found him tossing and battling in his sleep with some imaginary foe. “I don’t owe you a cent any longer!” he declared fiercely. “I’ve paid it all, even to the interest while I was in France; and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you just what I think of[82] you. You can go to thunder with your kind offers. I’m off you for life!” And then the big fellow turned with a groan of anguish, and buried his face in his pillow. [82] Miss Marilla paused in horror, thinking she had intruded upon some secret meditation; but, as she waited on tiptoe and breathless in the hall, she heard the steady hoarse
Prev.
Back
Top